Nice to know that a sign from God has now been reduced to "I met an Argentine couple who wanted the Argentine cardinal elected, probably one of only a few cardinals they knew the name of, because he was, you know, Argentinian".

digitalrain:Magorn: BKITU: Nice to know that a position of authority over a substantial portion of the world's population was granted in part by a man listening to the voices in his head.

to be fair, he's a cardinal and listening to an invisible voice IS part of his job description. And frankly, I'm neither ashamed to say that I believe in God, and that I do believe he has directly communicated with me before, and I know exactly what the cardinal is talking about. Buddhists call it "divine lightning", Skeptics call it "an intuitive leap", But you can have a moment when a certain word is soken, an idea is proposed, etc and your body reacts with a small, almost electrical shock to it and you KNOW it is correct with utter certainty. More than once I've correctly anticipated future events because of a feeling like that when consideringpossible outcomes of a decision or future event.

That is the most concise explanation of feeling the presence of God (or hearing His voice) that I haveever heard.

There have only been 3 times in my life when i have experienced it, but I've never forgotten it. The first,and probably most powerful, time was when my folks were driving me from Stuart FL to Clearwater FLwhere I had to go to get my divorce from my first husband. I was so terrified, I sat in the back of thevan and just shook. I felt sick to my stomach and almost called the whole thing off. See, my first husbandturned out to be an abusive SOB and back then, even the thought of being in the same room with himwould send me into panic attacks.

So there I am, having my own little breakdown, with my parents oblivious in the front of the van. All of asudden I heard this whisper in my head - I kid you not, it said "I am with you.". As soon as I heard it, allof the fear, all of the shaking and nausea just went away. Like someone flipped a switch, I was calm andcollected.

/ CSB, at least as far as I am concerned.

Christian doctrine also calls that "The peace that passes all understanding" and generally regards it as a gift of/a sign of the presence of, the Holy Spirit. As you can probably tell, I'm something of skeptic when it comes to the finer points of dogma and doctrine, but I find that an incredibly useful phrase/concept to describe that feeling, which has often happened to me in times of otherwise near-panic or depression

BKITU:Nice to know that a position of authority over a substantial portion of the world's population was granted in part by a man listening to the voices in his head.

to be fair, he's a cardinal and listening to an invisible voice IS part of his job description. And frankly, I'm neither ashamed to say that I believe in God, and that I do believe he has directly communicated with me before, and I know exactly what the cardinal is talking about. Buddhists call it "divine lightning", Skeptics call it "an intuitive leap", But you can have a moment when a certain word is soken, an idea is proposed, etc and your body reacts with a small, almost electrical shock to it and you KNOW it is correct with utter certainty. More than once I've correctly anticipated future events because of a feeling like that when consideringpossible outcomes of a decision or future event.